GENEVA, SWITZERLAND and RESTON, VIRGINIA, USA – 31 May 2011 – The Internet Society, the world’s trusted source of Internet leadership and coordinator of World IPv6 Day today announced that major websites in Asia, including Yahoo! Japan, are committing to join World IPv6 Day – the first large scale “test flight” of the new Internet Protocol, IPv6. With more than 60% of the world population and rapidly growing economies, Asia has been experiencing exponential growth in Internet usage, making the growing momentum behind IPv6 deployment extremely timely.

Website owners in Japan, Taiwan and Indonesia have join the ranks of organisations keen to ensure that their content remains reachable for everyone. In addition, the international reach of the ‘test flight’ will ensure that valuable international test data will be gained by all participants as they work towards full IPv6 deployment.

“We’re seeing really positive momentum both in IPv6 deployment and in commitments to this large-scale, 24 hour test,” commented Rajnesh Singh, Director of the Internet Society’s Asia Bureau. “It’s this momentum that will help carry the industry towards 20% IPv6 penetration; a milestone that is likely to be a tipping point for deployment. It is also encouraging to see that a large number of websites in local languages are amongst the first in Asia to adopt IPv6″

Participating websites in Asia also include Plurk, a major social networking site popular in Taiwan that offers a multi-lingual interface with users across Asia and the world, Biglobe, a major ISP in Japan that also provides media portal services for computers and mobile devices, and Detik.com, a major web portal that ranks as one of the most popular source for news and information in Indonesia.

On 8 June 2011, from 0000 UTC to 2359 UTC, these Asia-based participants will enable IPv6 on their primary websites and services for 24 hours. This ‘test flight’ of IPV6 is designed to help motivate organizations across the industry–Internet service providers, hardware manufacturers, operating system vendors and other web companies–to prepare their services for the transition.

IPv6, the successor to the protocol currently used on the Internet, was designed in the late 1990s but has not seen deployment on a global scale. With IPv4 address space running out, the industry cannot afford to wait much longer.

World IPv6 Day marks a key milestone in enabling more and more computers and smart phones to come online. As more of the world moves online, IPv6 will be critical for the Internet to reach its full potential as a catalyst for growth, innovation and economic prosperity. IPv6 provides over four billion times more addresses than IPv4, which will help connect the billions of people not connected today.

For more information about World IPv6 Day, current participants, how to get involved, and links to useful information for users, visit www.worldipv6day.org

About the need for IPv6 IPv4 has approximately four billion IP addresses (the sequence of numbers assigned to each Internet-connected device). The explosion in the number of people, devices and web services on the Internet means that IPv4 is running out of space. IPv6, the next-generation Internet protocol, which provides over four billion times more space, will connect the billions of people not connected today and will help ensure the Internet can continue its current growth rate.